Menu

Earth 2 – tape 2099

More random episodes of Earth 2. They’re still banging on about Virtual Reality – it’s the only way to make a particularly dreary looking series have a bit of visual diversity. Today they’re playing Westworld.

By the way, it’s nice to see that Earth 2’s VR system was using the same brown colour palette that most 3D games seemed to have in the 90s.

Watching these out of order doesn’t help me with the ongoing plot. such as there is. The group’s doctor, Julia Heller, is in contact with Terry O’Quinn, who’s one of the evil Earth council who want to colonise the planet, and they want to use the little boy, Ulysses, for their purposes because he has some sort of bond with the native intelligent aliens. But she’s reluctant to help him.

From the way this episode features her voiceover, I wonder if this is the first time her background has been revealed in the show.

She decides to extract Ulysses’ DNA and iject it into her to see if it will turn her into a contact with the aliens. Apparently, this means she has to take a sample of spinal fluid – not sure why a mouth swab isn’t enough.

But the experiments are having some effect…

In the end, the group decide to leave her behind. A bit harsh.

This episode is called The Enemy Within, which is one of the most generic episode titles there is. used in a huge number of TV series ranging from Star Trek to Peak Practice.

The next episode is Redemption, and surprisingly, they haven’t just forgotten about the previous episode. They’re still debating whether leaving Julia Heller behind was the right thing to do.

One of the group goes back for her – lucky he does because as soon as they get back, someone shoots at the group from a long way away. It’s a Z.E.D. – a sort of super-soldier sniper who had been deported to the planet.

The next episode is Moon Cross. Winter is coming, and young Ulysses somehow knows about an old camp near where they’ve stopped, which he calls Mary’s Garden.

Mary is a human woman who’s been living with the Terrians.

This is all happening during a time called Moon Cross when the two moons cross each other in the sky. For reasons which would seem to defy a rational explanation, at the point at which they just start or stop crossing, there’s a burst of light. I have no idea where this might be coming from. Looks cool, I suppose.

The ending is all a bit holding hands together singing Kum Ba Ya, though.

The last episode on this tape is the first in a two-parter, Better Living Through Morganite. There’s some kind of earthquake at the camp. They find some glowing rocks, and Morgan wants to stake a claim. Good grief, this is the same plot as that Sequest episode with the blue glowy rocks.

They have a Geo Lock, a device which ‘petrifies’ an area of ground. This has something to do with prospecting, but I’m not sure what. I think it’s mostly a macguffin to inject jeopardy later in the episode.

Meanwhile, the Cyborg Yale appears to be malfunctioning, acting aggressively.

And Morgan sets his Geo Lock to a large radius, not knowing that his wife was in the tunnels. This doesn’t seem like a safe piece of equipment that someone should just randomly own.

I’m still rather bored by this whole series, if I’m honest.

After this, there’s the start of an episode of Picket Fences, and the tape ends.

Adverts:

Radox

Poserbility

Wash & Go

Daily Mirror

Oscar’s Orchestra on video

Rennie

trail: The Commish

trail: Police Stop

Luther Vandross

Addiction

All-Bran

Iceland

Monopoly

Commercial Union

Daily Mirror

Bird’s Eye Peas

Pulp Fiction soundtrack

Sky One Prime Time

trail: Mrs Doubtfire

trail: Star Trek Voyager

Sky TV Guide

Sci Fi Channel

Nurofen

Frosties

Toys R Us

Budweiser

Sci Fi Channel

trail: Boxing

trail: Beethoven’s 2nd

CMT

Pedigree Chum

Cockburns Special Reserve

Panflair

CMT

The History Channel

Waiting to Exhale soundtrack

Muller – Fromage Frais

Hewlett Packard

Pepcid AC

trail: Football

trail: The Commish

The Greatest Hits of 95

Yellow Pages

Iceland

Totes Toasties

Oil of Ulay

Persil

Eternity

trail: Look Who’s Talking Now

trail: Coppers

Sky TV Guide

Kellogg’s Sustain

Bounce

Strepsils

Bisto Best

Chanel No5

trail: Cricket

trail: Robocop/VR.5

Energy Centre

Asda

Colman’s of Norwich

Viennetta

Tixylix

Comet

The History Channel

trail: The Dark Half

All-Bran

Barbara Taylor Bradford – Love in Another Town

Monsoon

The Jolly Giant

Baxters Soup

trail: Naked Gun 33 1/3

trail: Look Who’s Talking Now

Martini

braun

Sekonda

Scrabble

No 1 Christmas Album

trail: Boxing

trail: Star Trek Voyager

IBM

Kodak Image Magic print system

The American President in cinemas – including a URL, something still rare in 1995